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Station Status

Expedition 36 Flight Engineer Chris Cassidy works with the Burning And Suppression of Solids, or BASS, experiment. Credit: NASA

The three Expedition 36 crew members living and working aboard the International Space Station were focused on research and a variety of science experiments Wednesday as they adjust back to a normal work schedule after enjoying some time off on Tuesday.

Flight Engineer Chris Cassidy worked with the Burning And Suppression of Solids, or BASS, experiment which studies how a variety of solid materials burn and extinguish in microgravity. Results from BASS may lead to improvements in spacecraft materials selection, strategies for extinguishing accidental fires aboard spacecraft and improved computational models used in the design of fire detection and suppression systems here on Earth.

Commander Pavel Vinogradov focused on a variety of maintenance tasks in the Russian segment of the station, tagging up with specialists at the Russian Mission Control Center in Korolev as needed.

Expedition 36 Flight Engineer Chris Cassidy works with the Burning And Suppression of Solids, or BASS, experiment. Credit: NASA

Cassidy, Vinogradov and Misurkin all had time set aside to perform their daily 2.5 hours of exercise to help counter the effects of long-term exposure to the microgravity environment aboard the orbiting laboratory.

The spare Pump and Flow Control Subassembly (PFCS) box installed Saturday by Cassidy and Expedition 35 Flight Engineer Tom Marshburn during their 5-hour, 30-minute spacewalk continues to be checked out by flight controllers, but is showing no signs of ammonia leakage Wednesday and is functioning normally.

Meanwhile at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, Expedition 36 Flight Engineers Karen Nyberg, Fyodor Yurchikhin and Luca Parmitano continued preparations for their May 28 launch to the station aboard the Soyuz TMA-09M. Nyberg, Yurchikhin and Parmitano are set to depart for the launch site at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Thursday.